[That flickering thing in the other man's face—he spots it readily enough, because it is obvious and because it is unshielded. The fact that it exists at all is less interesting than its nakedness.
Ralston, fixed there, tips his head.]
I didn't have anything for them to take.
[Is true, and rare for it. They're words he won't repeat later given the opportunity, but here in this place where the air tastes faintly of a darker, grimmer pit, he feels compelled just enough toward honesty and is just enough out of practice that he bends to it.]
Why? What are you missing?
[He can see it, or feel the temperature of standing its shadow—the wide, absent outline of it.]
no subject
Ralston, fixed there, tips his head.]
I didn't have anything for them to take.
[Is true, and rare for it. They're words he won't repeat later given the opportunity, but here in this place where the air tastes faintly of a darker, grimmer pit, he feels compelled just enough toward honesty and is just enough out of practice that he bends to it.]
Why? What are you missing?
[He can see it, or feel the temperature of standing its shadow—the wide, absent outline of it.]